The Story

Confronted with the cat, Derek felt fear taking him over. Well, thought Derek, what would Lickey Mouse do? He would… he would find a weapon and battle the cat! Derek looked around. What he saw was not encouraging. Grass, nuts, leaves, an ant hill, several small pebbles, a flat piece of wood [apparently used by Humans for making nests - a silly way to go about it!], and a biggish rock. Derek thought hard. He didn't have much time before the cat - who was currently occupied in knocking another cat over [maybe an intimidation technique to use on his next prey?] - decided to get serious about dinner.

Suddenly, inspiration struck. He heaved the wood onto the rock, centered it, and placed a pebble at one end of the wood, with the others piled neatly beside the contraption. Then, he waited.

With a 'mrow', the cat [whose name, by the way, was Sanders] prowled towards Derek. What's this? thought Sanders. This little pipsqueak is too frightened to even run? Darn it, that's no fun! He was disappointed; he'd thought that maybe he could get a little exercise to cancel out the fatty mouse-meat. His doctor had been nagging him about losing weight, and maybe then his feline fancy, Felice, would pay more attention to him.

Sanders was shaken out of his revery when he felt something sharp hit his back. Approaching, he was pelted by tiny pebbles. Enraged, he was about to pounce on the mouse when one particularly sharp-edged rock hit his eye, temporarily blinding him. Yowling in pain, he scurried off, avoiding the stares of the other cats as he admitted defeat.

Derek was ecstatic. His invention had worked! He wasn't in the stomach of a cat! Maybe he was a little more like Lickey Mouse than he'd thought. Humming happily to himself, he pranced off further into the forest.

~Lexi